Author Interview

Have you been writing for a long time?

There are some writers who talk about writing stories as a child or knowing from high school or college years they were destined to write.

Nope. Not me. Never once considered writing until ten years ago when I thought about searching for a new job. Instead of pondering prospects, my imagination kept trying to play out a story in my head. The tale refused to leave me alone until I’d put the whole thing to paper. It was at that point, I actually thought… Hmmm, maybe I could be a writer.

What inspired you to start a writing career?

Through most of my life, I always loved to tell stories, but I never wrote them. About a decade ago when I thought about that job change, I had no idea what I wanted to do. Now, I know I’m going to sound like a wack job, but one odd day during that decade back, a movie started running in my head — first the general plot, then scenes flitting in and out.

I know. I know. Hard to believe. Surprised the dickens out of me, too. Well, the movie pestered me day after day until I finally started speed-writing scene bullets to get them all on paper, and that turned out to be my first book. Oddly enough, all my books have “arrived” that same way — movies that run in my head, so real that I can see the scene layouts in color with all the characters. *smile* And no, I’m really not crazy. Just lucky, maybe.

Is The SEAL’s Angel your first book? If not, please tell us about your first book.

With my first novel, I decided a unique venue was sure to set my love story apart from the other 500,000+ romance novels on Amazon. So, in Everglades, I stranded my hero and heroine aboard an airboat overnight, deep within the dangerous River of Grass.

I spent two years of my career doing aquatic plant surveys all over Florida usually aboard airboats. Everything that happens to Kayli Heddon on the airboat safari in the Everglades happened to me at some time in my career: the bug storm, swimming with a gator, the leeches, the heart-stopping airboat maneuvers. Everything, that is, except getting stranded overnight with a sexy, hunky airboat guide. I never got one of those. *sigh*

Why did you choose romance as genre for your book?

I’m a sucker for a love story. It’s as simple as that. I can never read enough of them and hope there’s enough readers like me out there that will give one of my books a try.

Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

Pick and choose the criticism you will allow to affect or change your voice and style. You’ll be bombarded by critiques from all sides, as you progress with your career, and you don’t have to take all of the criticism as gospel.

You’ll get criticism from professional editors and literary agents in your quest to get published, and you should probably give grave consideration to recommendations from these folks. You will also receive criticism from other newbie authors like yourself — via online writer’s groups, contest judging, etc. — and these evaluations you should take with a grain of salt. If the suggestion feels right, then try it. Go with your gut instinct. No one knows your voice and style better than you. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.

Newbie authors are inclined to critique the writing of others more often than anyone else in the business — no doubt excited about their new-found craft. Never let these critiquers get you down, and never ever let them make you quit. Listen to those who have already experienced a certain level of success in the industry, and you cannot go wrong.

Do you have any works in progress you’d like to tell us about?

I’ll do more Mystery Angel Romances for sure. The MARs are not so much a series as they are a similarly themed or plotted group of stories. The cast of characters are different in each story, but each novel is similar in that an angel has been hidden within the plot, waiting for the reader to discover their identity. The angel is not officially revealed until the finale unless the reader determines it first. So all the stories are stand-alone books.

I have another new series in the hopper, and the brand will be The Cinderella Romances… Fall in love with the fairy tale all over again. Luckily, there will be unlimited opportunities to retell the famous fairy tale in different locales with different heroines playing the part of Cinderella. How fun to get to retell the fairy tale a dozen different ways. Sometimes the reader will know who the Prince Charming is at the get go, and sometimes they won’t. That will make each fairy tale unique.

The first story — Cinderella Busted — is complete. The romantic fairy tale moves to present-day Jupiter Island, Florida where a beautiful gardener is mistaken for a wealthy socialite by a billionaire resort developer. Anxious for one fabulous date with her handsome prince, the gardener cultivates her inadvertent masquerade. Love at first sight controls their mutual attraction, and feelings run deep before her deception is inevitably discovered. This story is presently under review for publication, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

About the Book

Title: The SEAL’s Angel

Author: Petie McCarty

Genre: Contemporary Romance / Military

Navy SEAL Sean MacKay’s teammate is murdered after stealing a deadly nerve-gas formula from Syrian terrorists. Naval Intelligence believes MacKay’s teammate was a traitor and shipped the stolen formula to his sister in the states for safekeeping. MacKay is given orders to find the sister before the terrorists do and to retrieve the stolen formula at all costs.

Foreclosure looms for Cory Rigatero as she fights to keep her rustic resort near Mt. St. Helens afloat after her brother deserted her to join the SEAL Teams. Cory’s whole world dives into a tailspin when Sean MacKay shows up at her resort with the news of her brother’s death and the wild suspicion her brother may have sent her traitorous classified documents. No way will Cory trust MacKay — the man who once seduced her and then vanished into the night without a trace.

Author Bio

Petie spent a large part of her career working as a biologist at Walt Disney World — “The Most Magical Place on Earth” — where she enjoyed working in the land of fairy tales by day and creating her own romantic fairy tales by night. She eventually said good-bye to her “day” job in order to write her stories full-time.

Petie is a member of Romance Writers of America, and she shares homes in Tennessee and Florida with her horticulturist husband, a spoiled-rotten English Springer spaniel addicted to pimento-stuffed green olives, and a noisy Nanday conure named Sassy who made a cameo appearance in Angel to the Rescue.